


kiss me when we find some time alone

by polly_perks



Series: phichit and yuuri's whirlwind college romance [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Flashbacks, M/M, Moving Out, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Canon, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-15 17:02:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9247130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polly_perks/pseuds/polly_perks
Summary: Phichit knows that Yuuri is filling up a glass with water and ice so he can drink it in the morning when he wakes up; he knows that Yuuri will be quiet around him for most of the day tomorrow as he tries to figure out how to tell Phichit he’s moving back home. And he knows Yuuri will be equal parts relieved and disappointed when Phichit tells him that he already figured it out.





	

**Author's Note:**

> warning for some mentions of underage drinking! nothing too serious though
> 
> title comes from "anything we want" by fiona apple. not a mika song for once, shockingly!!

In relationships, Phichit thinks, listening to Yuuri Skype his parents in the other room, there’s no bronze medal. There’s no one in the position to think, “at least I made it to the podium.” There’s only the person who comes out on top, and the one who thinks, “I almost made it. I was so close to gold.” He wonders which one of them is which in this scenario.

Yuuri and his parents are speaking Japanese, but Phichit doesn’t need to understand the language to know what they’re saying. He’s been Yuuri’s roommate for the last two years, and he knows that Yuuri is four semesters ahead of him. And although he hadn’t been at the Grand Prix a week ago, he knows its results too.

Yuuri will be moving back to Japan in a month.

It’s one in the morning so Yuuri can talk to his parents while their business is at a lull. He’d told Phichit that they ran a hot springs and a restaurant, and had asked Phichit to visit some time. If he visited now, though, Phichit would be the only visitor; Yuuri would be home, would be a host. He tries to pick out some of the Japanese words Yuuri had taught him instead of considering what that means to him. To them.

There’s never been a _them_ before; without words they’d always known that they were simply a crossroads between two separate trajectories. Now, though, the roads are starting to split, and Phichit can’t see where his is leading him.

“I love you,” Phichit hears Yuuri say over the phone. It had been one of the first phrases Yuuri taught him, after they’d swapped “hello” and “my name is.”

 _Isn’t that moving a little fast?_ Phichit had teased. _After all, you’ve only just introduced yourself._ He hadn’t meant anything by it, but he’s still sure that Yuuri’s cheeks lit up red. The sun was behind his head so Phichit couldn’t be sure.

 _I didn’t mean to make it weird_ , Yuuri had said quietly. They were sitting in a cafe close to the rink, either after or before practice, and Phichit had leant forward to catch the words. _It just seems like a fairly standard phrase to me._

 _You haven’t made anything weird,_ Phichit reassured him. _I could never feel weird around you._

Phichit is sure that he would still say the same, so why does he pretend to be asleep when Yuuri walks past his room?

Phichit knows that Yuuri is filling up a glass with water and ice so he can drink it in the morning when he wakes up; he knows that Yuuri will be quiet around him for most of the day tomorrow as he tries to figure out how to tell Phichit he’s moving away. And he knows Yuuri will be equal parts relieved and disappointed when Phichit tells him that he already figured it out.

The thing about Yuuri, though, is that he always manages to surprise Phichit at the exact moment they both need it. He’d been the one to kiss Phichit first, right as Phichit was telling himself that making a move on his roommate was a terrible idea. Even earlier, he’d been the one to suggest moving into an apartment together just as the skating season started in earnest and they doubled down on practice, perhaps realizing that they spent far too much time in Phichit’s dorm to justify living apart.

Phichit stays in his room the next morning to give Yuuri space to figure himself out, so he’s surprised when Yuuri knocks on his door a little after noon with a plate of toast in his hands.

“Thank you,” Phichit says, and they eat in silence. When they finish, Yuuri sets the plate on Phichit’s nightstand, checks the bed for hamsters (they’re all in their cage), and lies back with his arms open. He’s done this enough times that Phichit knows what to do in response; he lies down, too, rests his head on Yuuri’s shoulder and wraps an arm around his waist.

Yuuri rolls up and puts his arm across Phichit’s shoulders, curling it up so he can brush his fingers through the hair at the back of Phichit’s neck. They’re chest-to-chest, Phichit’s head tucked under Yuuri’s chin and Yuuri’s leg thrown over Phichit’s so that his heel is pressing into Phichit’s calf. It’s the closest they’ve ever been, and not entirely sustainable as Phichit can already feel one arm falling asleep, but he doesn’t move.

“I’m going to miss you,” Yuuri says quietly, although Phichit’s head is right next to Yuuri’s chest so the sound vibrates from Yuuri’s body into his and it’s all he can think about for the next few moments.

Phichit grips the back of Yuuri’s shirt and says, “This place won’t be the same without you.”

Yuuri pulls back a little so he can see Phichit’s face. “You’re not going to stay in this apartment, are you?”

Phichit laughs and hopes it’s convincing. “No, no, I meant in general. The skate club. Detroit.”

“Ah,” Yuuri says, and pulls Phichit back towards him. They lie there for a while longer, then watch a movie together, then let Phichit’s hamsters out of their cage so they can crawl around on the bed. Yuuri accuses Phichit of spoiling them even as he picks one up and lets it run around in his hands, and Phichit heartily agrees that he does. Far be it from him to deny the ones he loves.

Three days later, Yuuri starts packing. Just the things he won’t be needing for the next month, like his heavy winter coat and his costume from the Grand Prix. Phichit had suggested he burn it as catharsis, but Yuuri insisted with a tiny smile that the smell of melted sequins wouldn’t help much. He packs it lovingly, making sure the folds won’t wrinkle it, and then covers it with his practice tee-shirts.

Immediately after returning from Sochi, Yuuri had delicately but purposefully taken down all of his Viktor Nikiforov posters and filed them in an old school binder, so his walls looked as though he were already gone. He’d kept up one clipping from some tiny German sports magazine that had an interview in which Viktor mentioned a man he’d dated in his early twenties; Yuuri had been all set to learn German before finding a translation for the article online and taping that up next to the magazine page.

 _Looks like you’ve got a chance,_ Phichit had joked after reading the translation. Yuuri burst into tears and tried to shove Phichit out of his room, but Phichit grabbed him around the waist and affected a movie-villain Russian accent until Yuuri was tearing up from laughter instead.

 _He sounds nothing like that,_ Yuuri wailed, doing a very poor job of pretending that he was trying to escape Phichit’s grasp.

 _How could you, Yuurrrri,_ Phichit said, rolling his _r_ for far longer than was necessary. _My Rrrussian accent is part of vhat makes me so sexy._

He hasn’t said anything about the posters, because he figures that something more than a few falls on the ice must have happened for Yuuri to deny himself the constant sight of Viktor Nikiforov’s face. Right now he’s in Yuuri’s room, helping him find his snowboots. Yuuri asks Phichit to hand him the folder, and without thinking, Phichit asks, “the Viktor posters?”

Phichit can see Yuuri’s shoulders hunch up around his ears; he’s kneeling on the floor in front of his suitcase with his back to Phichit.

“Yeah. The posters.” Phichit hands them over, and catches Yuuri’s eye in the process. After Yuuri slides the folder into the outside pocket of his suitcase, he sits back on his heels. 

“We kind of...ran into each other at the Grand Prix,” Yuuri says. Before Phichit can get out an excited squeal, or even grab Yuuri’s shoulder to shake it with excitement and the command to tell him _everything,_ Yuuri continues, “it kind of sucked. I was hoping for…” he trails off and sighs, and Phichit's hand on Yuuri’s shoulder goes from thrilled to comforting. Yuuri leans into the touch. 

“...something else,” is the only way he can think to finish, but that’s all Phichit needs to hear, because he knows that an entire lifetime of hero-worship and emulating and (Phichit’s always thought privately) crushing on, can’t be summed up with words.  

“There’s plenty of fish in the sea,” Phichit says, still rubbing Yuuri’s shoulder a little. The reassurance is so far out of the line of reasoning Yuuri must have expected that he gapes at Phichit.

“It’s not like I was expecting to get _married_ to the guy or anything,” he says. His surprise isn’t enough to usurp his melancholy, though, and he shrugs unhappily. “I guess it just would have been nice if he noticed my skating or something, that’s all.” 

Two days later, they’re at the cafe by the rink, sitting outside despite the fact that it’s still chilly enough for their breath to mist in the air. Yuuri’s glasses fog up when he puts his cup to his lips, and Phichit laughs so hard that he starts breathing into it on purpose to keep them foggy. He stops doing it when Phichit takes out his phone for a picture, but relents when Phichit moves around the table to crouch by Yuuri’s chair so he can get in the picture as well, taking off Yuuri’s hat and stacking it on top of his own so they look equally silly. He doesn’t touch Yuuri’s arm or put his own around Yuuri’s shoulders, even though he wants to. 

“Um, Phichit?” Yuuri says as Phichit is fiddling with the filters on Instagram. “Could I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Phichit says, typing the caption and then laying his phone on the table.

“So, I talked to my mom last night, and it doesn’t look like she can make it to Detroit at the end of the month. I know you’ll probably be busy with finals, but…” he’s playing with the hot sleeve on his cup, sliding it off and stacking it on top of the cover before sliding it back on upside-down and then repeating the process. “Would you like to come to my graduation ceremony? Only if you can, of course.”

Phichit can’t believe he’s being so modest about this. “Of course I’ll come! How could I miss it? I’ll film the whole thing, so your parents can see it too!”

Yuuri laughs and ducks his head. “Just because you’re taking my mom’s place doesn’t mean you have to act like her.”

“Yuuri, how could you,” Phichit says, and Yuuri tenses momentarily before he continues. “Does your mother take selfies this good?” He shows Yuuri the finished Instagram post of them at the cafe, captioned “Detroit won’t be the same without you!” followed by a few ice skate emojis, a plane, the Japanese flag, and then some yellow hearts.

“No,” Yuuri says softly, smiling at Phichit’s phone. “No, she definitely doesn’t.” 

Another two days later, two full weeks after the Grand Prix Final, Yuuri falls during practice. He assures everyone he’s fine, but can’t make it to the edge of the rink without Celestino’s arm around his waist. He hunches over to remove his skates, and then stays hunched over. Phichit can’t see from this distance if his shoulders are shaking. He looks to Celestino and nods slightly towards Yuuri; Celestino nods back, so Phichit knows he has permission to take him home.

He skates to the edge of the rink. “Come on, Yuuri, I’m tired. Let’s go back.” Yuuri nods but doesn’t speak, and continues to stay silent until they’re both outside.

Phichit doesn’t try to support Yuuri with an arm around his waist as Celestino had. He does take Yuuri’s hand, which is when Yuuri stops walking and puts his other hand over his mouth. Phichit pulls his hand away and sees that Yuuri’s face is scrunched up like he’s trying not to cry. 

“Does it still hurt? Do you want me to--”

“No, no, it doesn’t--it doesn’t hurt at all. My ankle is fine.” If it had been anyone else, in any other situation, Phichit wouldn’t have believed them. But he knows Yuuri, knows that Yuuri is too smart to lie to himself about injuries and hadn’t seen him limping anyways.

“I’m embarrassed about falling. I wasn’t even trying to do a triple, and I fell. I should be able to get that down by now. Plus, I’m sure everyone saw me crying at the edge of the rink, so I’m sure that they think I was way more hurt than I actually am--”

“Yuuri.” Phichit interrupts him, and puts his hands on his shoulders. Squeezes them, and crouches down so that Yuuri, looking at the ground, is forced to look into Phichit’s face. “You must be the only person in the world who thinks you’re weak.”

At the very least, he’s surprised Yuuri enough that he stops crying. Eyes wide, he sniffs a few times, then uses one hand to take one of Phichit’s off his shoulder. He keeps them linked the whole way back home, but doesn’t say much to Phichit.

That night, Phichit realizes he’s counting down, even though he took down the touristy “Bangkok through the seasons” calendar his parents had sent him and turned the alarm clock in his room face-down so he couldn’t watch the time wind away. He wakes up the next morning and the morning after that with a twist in his stomach that he doesn’t like; it’s the tension he gets when he knows he’s wasting time before something important, although he doesn’t know what he should be doing instead. 

The tension is the worst on Tuesday, when Yuuri has a final exam early in the morning so he’s out of the apartment before Phichit wakes up. Phichit heads to the rink as soon as he’s awake, even if he said he’d study with a group of people for their final later in the afternoon. Celestino looks at him like he’s trying to figure something out, but he continues coaching Phichit as normal.

Yuuri still isn’t at home when Phichit gets back that evening, so he starts making dinner and waits for him. It’s dark when he finally shows up, and his backpack hitting the ground with a heavy thud is what alerts Phichit to his presence.

“Welcome back! How was your test?” He doesn’t ask what Yuuri did all day.

Yuuri just sits on one of the chairs by the kitchen counter and hangs his head in his hands. “That bad, huh?”

“I know I studied, but when I got there I just couldn’t stop thinking about what happened at the Grand Prix, and about Vicchan, and I just froze up. It was awful. I could have made myself focus more, or--”  
  
“Hey, hey,” Phichit comes around the counter so he can grab Yuuri’s shoulders again. “I’m sure you did better than you think you did. You definitely passed.”

“How do you know?” Yuuri isn’t looking at his face.

“Because I saw how hard you studied, and you always know more than you say you do. Plus, even if you failed the final, I’m sure you still passed the class. You went to, like, all the lectures. No one does that.” 

That manages to make Yuuri laugh, if only a little. “You’re graduating in a week. All you have to do is pass.”

Yuuri looks up at him then. All he says is, “I guess,” but his breathing is shallow and his eyes are wide.

He’s still sitting in the kitchen chair, and his hair is slightly frantic; he must have been playing with it during the exam. Phichit runs his fingers through it so it’s more evenly pushed back away from his forehead and Yuuri puts his hands on Phichit’s waist.

“You’re the best,” he says. Phichit smiles and sits sideways on his lap, throwing one arm around his shoulders. Yuuri’s arms immediately circle his waist even as he huffs in surprise.

“I know that,” he says. “You can’t seem to stop reminding me,” and then he kisses Yuuri.

If Yuuri is surprised that Phichit is kissing him rather than the other way around this time, he doesn’t show it. Phichit had meant for it to be quick, but he lingers long enough to push his slightly shaking fingers up through Yuuri’s hair once from the back of his neck. When he pulls away, he sees that Yuuri’s eyes are still closed.

Then he gets off of Yuuri’s lap, clears his throat once, and says, “Okay, no more distractions. I need to finish making dinner, my babies miss me.” 

Yuuri is running two fingers over his lips but he doesn’t miss a beat. “You’ve been home longer than I have, I’m sure they’re fine,” he points out, laughing and following Phichit to the kitchen.

“Yes, but I’ve been neglecting them to make dinner for my _other_ baby,” he says, looking pointedly at Yuuri. Yuuri rolls his eyes and shoves Phichit with his shoulder, taking his place at the stove.

“I’m older than you. Go take care of your children.” Phichit does, but not before poking Yuuri in the sides and making him shriek, running off while Yuuri is stuck at the stove.

He’s still counting down two days later (there’s 12 days left until Yuuri’s flight) when he says, “Oh my god, I completely forgot to plan a going-away party for you! We’ll do whatever you want, Yuuri, we can even get--”

“No, no, no party!” Yuuri is laughing a little but there’s panic in his eyes. “I don’t want to make it into a big deal.” Phichit sits next to him on the couch, close enough that their thighs and shoulders are pressed together. He can’t touch Yuuri enough these days, finding any excuse to put their bodies close enough that they can rest against each other. He considers leaning his head on Yuuri’s shoulder but doesn’t.

“It is a big deal, though,” Phichit says. Yuuri doesn’t respond for a moment, just grabs Phichit’s hand.

Then, “You know I’m not good at parties.” And Phichit does know, has seen Yuuri stand apart with a Solo cup in hand like it’s the buzzer on a game show that’ll win him a million dollars. _Are you having fun?_ Phichit had asked the first time, at some party hosted by the hockey team that even he didn’t really want to be at, and of course Yuuri had smiled (grimaced) and replied _Yeah, and you seem to be too._

Phichit had then tried to mentally catalogue how much he’d had to drink, but the third full cup of “sangria” (if one could even call it that, because Phichit had definitely seen them pouring beer into it) got in his way. _Oh, baby, we don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,_ he’d said, and Yuuri had put a hand up under Phichit’s arm to steady him and asked _Why did you just call me a baby_ and Phichit had to get his drunk mouth around the fact that _Americans use it like a nickname. Like a cute name if you’re dating someone_ and Yuuri’s face started matching the cup in his hands and he hadn’t said anything else to Phichit the whole rest of the night and seemed determined to act like it hadn’t happened the next morning.

“You’re all right once you’ve got a little vodka in you,” Phichit jokes, and Yuuri grimaces dramatically.

“Ew. Vodka is the worst.”

Phichit shrugs in agreement and says, “Yeah, but do you remember that time you took, like, six shots and got a whole frat to dance with you?”

“No.”

Yuuri has gone uncomfortably pale and Phichit can feel how tense he is from the plane of connection along their arms.

Laughter dies in his throat. “You...you seriously don’t? Oh my god, a few of them even gave you their numbers.”

Yuuri looks like he’s about to be sick. “Was that the night before spring break? Because I remember getting texts from people I didn’t know the next day...I thought they were wrong numbers.”

He puts his head in his hands again and Phichit has to choke down a little laugh. “You ghosted at least two frat boys. Who would’ve thought you had it in you, Yuuri Katsuki?”

Yuuri is shaking his head, still cradled in his hands. “I can’t believe this,” he mutters.

Phichit rubs a hand up and down his back, more for the feeling of touching Yuuri than anything else. The inexplicable urge to call him _baby_ again, like he had almost a year ago, blooms in his chest but dies as soon as it gets to his throat. All he says is, “Oh, Yuuri,” but he doesn’t seem to hear. 

A week later (six days left until Yuuri’s flight), Phichit can’t believe he hasn’t catalogued every second they’re in each other’s presence, every time Yuuri looks at him with wide brown eyes like he's surprised Phichit is still there, every time their shirts brush without their bodies touching as they move around each other in the tiny kitchen, every time he can hear Yuuri’s voice through the wall when he speaks to his family on the phone. He wishes he had started the list from the first moment they’d met, so he could rifle through his mental folder labelled _Katsuki, Yuuri_ and call up the feeling of Yuuri’s fingers resting between his every time he notices their absence.  

The thought comes to him in a rush as he’s watching Yuuri tape up one of his moving boxes, starting to take his things from the living room as his bedroom is already bereft of most of his clothes and the kitchen devoid of half its bowls (all of them were Yuuri’s, taken from his previous apartment, but he’d insisted Phichit keep them seeing as his parents had plenty of cutlery. Phichit managed to convince him to take half, because they _were_ technically his and maybe having less bowls would motivate Phichit to do the dishes more often). He’s closing the box over the poodle print throw blanket that had lived on the couch since they’d moved in and Phichit is realizing that he had forgotten it was Yuuri’s; he was so used to seeing it every time he came home he had forgotten it wasn’t actually attached to the couch.

He moves around the couch to sit down on it and to watch Yuuri pack from less of a distance and checks his phone for something to look at other than Yuuri’s back and the empty living room.

“Celestino wants to take us out for dinner,” he says, scrolling through the group chat he’d been added to half an hour ago. “I mean, the whole skate club. To celebrate your graduation, and to send you off properly, and also probably because he hasn’t had a good Bloody Mary in a while. I heard him complaining the other day.”

“All right,” Yuuri sighs.

“Try not to sound so excited,” Phichit teases. He nudges Yuuri’s hip with his toes.

“I do want to go! I really do.” He pushes the box to a corner of the room, out of the way so neither of them will trip on it, and sits next to Phichit. He doesn’t put himself as close to Phichit as Phichit does him, but their knees do touch when Yuuri turns to look at him. “I’m just not sure I want a whole night of people crying over me.”

Phichit shifts closer; he can’t help it, and Yuuri seems glad to turn so their bodies line up more closely.

“What do you want to do, Yuuri?”

He’s blushing, staring at the box in the corner of the room instead of anywhere near the vicinity of Phichit’s face, yet still manages to find his hand and grab onto it.

“I, um. I really just want to spend time with you.”

Phichit takes what feels like his first proper breath in a month. He can feel it push into his lungs and release the tension in his stomach, loosen the squeeze in his throat, unknot something at the back of his neck he hadn’t realized was there until it left.

Yuuri’s hand has never felt so warm than when he tightens his grip on it.

“We can arrange that for sure,” he says, and when Yuuri looks at his face he feels like he knows what his own smile must look like.

Phichit plans out Yuuri’s whole last week, promising him that they’ll go to all the touristy places they haven’t seen yet because of school and practice. Yuuri smiles and agrees, but when the time comes for them to go wherever it is Phichit has decided for the day, they always end up on the bus to the river walk, and walk arm-in-arm with the sun at their backs.  

“Phichit,” Yuuri asks three days before his flight, “what are you going to do?”  

“I’m going to win the Grand Prix Final with a stunning short program set to _Shall We Skate,_ obviously.”

Yuuri laughs. “I already know that. I mean, after I leave. What are you going to do here?” 

“What am I ever going to do without you, Yuuri Katsuki? Is that what you’re asking me?” Yuuri laughs again and shoves him with the shoulder that’s flush with Phichit’s. He doesn’t unlink their arms, though, so they both just end up sort of skipping sideways. Phichit is deflecting, because he actually doesn’t know what he’s going to do, but Yuuri doesn’t have to know that.

“Yuuri,” Phichit says the day before Yuuri’s flight, in the afternoon because Celestino is treating the skate club to dinner that night, “do you miss Hasetsu?”

Yuuri slides his arm further through Phichit’s so he’s gripping his shoulder. “I miss my family,” he says. “And everyone else I knew there. And the river here is nice, but it’s not the same as the ocean there. It smells different.”

“That sounds to me like you miss it.” Phichit means to sound teasing but it just comes out quiet and a little sad.

“I don’t know if I miss the whole thing, though.”

“What do you mean?” They’ve been slowing down, and now Yuuri stops outright, leaving Phichit no choice but to stop with him.

“When I think of all the individual parts of it, like the skate rink and the ocean and the castle, I miss them. But then I think about what it would actually be like to be there, and I’m not sure I would rather be there than here. Isn’t that part of missing something?”

Phichit just nods.

“I love Hasetsu, but I also love Detroit. I love the river here, and our skating rink--”

“Even when it’s taken over by hockey players?”

Yuuri laughs again, and Phichit thinks that if he ever wants to remember Yuuri’s laugh in the future, it’ll be this one.

“Yes, even then. I love our apartment, and I love--” and here Yuuri falters, licking his lips once before continuing in a very quiet voice, “I love being here with you.”

“Me too,” Phichit says, and the sun is weak behind a thick grey veil of clouds but it still glints off of Yuuri’s glasses when he tilts his head to the side and smiles.  
  
They start walking again. “I think we both won gold this time,” Phichit says quietly, not sure if Yuuri can hear him over the gurgle of the river on one side and the rush of cars driving over wet pavement on the other.

**Author's Note:**

> a portion of this is me venting some feelings about finding out one of my closest friends won't be at school with me this semester. i really think these two ended things on good terms without much angst, and i hope i managed to convey that!
> 
> if you liked this fic then i strongly, strongly suggest ["breaking the circle, taking the light"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9247943) by strikinglight which has a very similar concept to this one and is also possibly one of the best fics i've ever read


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